TechnoBuffalo reached out to Nokia, but the company wouldn’t comment on the latest rumors and instead reiterated the firm’s focus to its existing tablet. Spokesperson Chris Hollis offered the following statement:

We’re really excited about the Lumia 2520 and we’ve received great support from carriers around the world. We’re committed to bringing it to more markets in the near future.

The 8.3-inch tablet was expected to sport similar specs to the Lumia 2520 packed into a smaller design, including the larger device’s Snapdragon 800 quad-core processor, its 6.7-megapixel camera and possibly even its 1080 x 1920-pixel display. Those components would have made for an extremely impressive mid-sized slate to compete with the Retina iPad Mini, the Nexus 7 (2013) and the rest of the pack, but unfortunately it sounds like the so-called Illusionist will never see the light of day.

It’s surprising to hear that Nokia would scrap its 8-inch tablet while the market for mid-sized slates continues to grow, but My Nokia Blog’s report doesn’t offer any explanation for why the project was cancelled. Hopefully someone else is working on a similar Windows device; rumors have suggested Microsoft is indeed doing so, which may be one explanation for the cancellation.